Photos say it all!  Heritage Day continues to be  a great success!  Great job by Liz Lovelady, Events Coordinator for the City of Semmes and all the citizen volunteers that make it possible to provide a glimpse of life  in the pioneer days. 

       

Under the direction of Liz Lovelady, City of Semmes Events Director, The Annual Camellia Festival was held in January  at its original location, the gym of old Semmes High School.  The Festival consists of Flower displays, Camellias in art show, Beauty Pageant with the Camellia Maids welcoming everyone After the new High School, Mary G. Montgomery was built; the old Semmes High School became the home of the Semmes Boys and Girls Club.. 
The Camellia Festival beginning in 1949 was revived in 2013 by Alumni & Friends of Semmes School in remembrance of the Semmes Nursery Industry. At the request of Alumni & Friends of Semmes School, Inc. Semmes Heritage Park became a Semmes City Park in 2022.  

              Semmes Train Station-Mrs. P.G. Christopher Train Agent and Fellie Christopher Metcalf.
 Train service brought much growth and changes to Semmes.  The train station became the center of the community with passenger service, a store, a hotel, moving of the school and a post office.

Prior to the establishment of post offices in  rural areas, a line of posts were set up along a designated Road. Al. Hwy 42, known today as U.S. Hwy 98 was a designated post road. Mail was delivered by horseback to the post which had a leather bag to collect the mail.  The McCrary Family received mail at the 15 mile post.

The first post office in Semmes was established in 1894 near the train station. The first postmaster was Drury O. McCrary.  Mail was delivered by train on the fly as the train did not have to stop. A canvas and leather catcher pouch that could hold up to 50 pounds of outgoing mail was suspended on a crane’s arm by metal rings. A mail-bag catcher was affixed to the train mail car door. It was manually deployed to grab the mail bag from the crane and was sorted on the train. Arriving mail bags were kicked out the mail door to the ground and the train agent collected the bag.
Semmes was a stop on The Rebel Route of the Gulf Mobile & Ohio passenger service operating from 1940 to 1958. Rebel Trains were lightweight streamlined hybrid diesel- electric trains built by American Car and Foundry, 1935.  Citizens of Semmes traveled to Mobile on the Rebel as commuters.
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​ Bill Dodd shared these  memories of Life in Semmes  at the Semmes Heritage Park Meeting November 2008
I was born in 1920 and it was a very strict time of life, but a wonderful time.  We (my brothers and I) milked the cows, fed the chicken and pigs. We had a barn that had a hay loft.  I did not learn how to read until after I had an exam and it was found out that I could not read.
Family Nursery
  I remember someone came down from Iowa to see if we could grow plants to sale in one year.   Plants were shipped bare roots, tied together 20 to 40 plants to a bundle on the train. We had Roses and Privets.
 My brothers and I had chores. We were to carry buckets of water for the workers working in the field. We had to work in the field too. Sometimes one of my brothers would climb a tree to be the look out while we rested. He would sound the alarm when he saw someone coming so we get back to work..
Roses   were a big crop in Semmes. Tyler Texas undercut the prices of roses so the rose business went to Tyler.   One of our jobs was the budding (grafting) of roses and multi flora Japonica with budding stock. You took a knife made a t shape   into the plant and budding stock was inserted and wrapped.
School Memories
Dan McDuffie was a farmer that hauled pigs to market on the weekend. He cleaned his truck well and it became the school bus during the week.
I remember classmates Dorothy and Melody Pollard, and eating lunch with P.J. Christopher whose grandmother ran the railroad station.  We played under the schoolhouse. The Schoolhouse was high up because the land would hold water.
Mr. Kino had children in school.  He bought a Victrola for the school.  Classical music was played every Friday as it was rolled from one class to the other.
There were two stores in Semmes, Mrs. Pringles and Mrs. Tiffin and I went to meet the train to get the bread and deliver to the stores. Bread came from Mobile.
There were section houses close to the railroad.  The Havard house was made from section houses.  
P. J. Christopher would meet the train and if he did not like the way a person looked he would tell them to get back on the train and keep on going.
Daniel Christopher would put on his Confederate Uniform to come to town.
Will Christopher worked for the railroad as an inspector of the railroad tracks.

Sarah Phelps Wilson grew up in Semmes, where her mother started the first school cafeteria at Semmes High School. She married her husband Earl in Semmes First Baptist Church 55 years ago, and today lives with him on the same property where she lived as a child.
Though not flashy or attention-seeking with her work, she’s nevertheless a leader: She is a charter member and vice president of Alumni and Friends of Semmes School; the person who oversees the rental and upkeep of Malone Chapel at Semmes Heritage Park; a worker and faithful member of her church and a supervisor during elections at the voting site at Semmes Community Center. 
JoAnne McKnight-November 14,2012 

Phelps Family History

AL.com and Press-Register Correspondent

• Jo Anne McKnight
• Published: May. 24, 2011, 8:45 p.m.
  
• Semmes Heritage Day was May 14 at Semmes Heritage Park on Wulff Road, and Steve Cobb fired his war cannon replica at precisely 9 a.m. to start the celebration with a bang. After the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem and a prayer, Heritage Park president Raymond Byrd introduced guest speakers Sen. Rusty Glover, Rep. Chad Fincher and Judge Don Davis. Each spoke very briefly, with Fincher noting that Semmes is the "newest city in the state" and one with "a rich past and a bright future."

On the entertainment schedule were the Allentown Elementary School Choir, the Square Deal Square Dancers, Deep South Dulcimers, Lost and Found Orchestra, Diane Moore and a Ladies' Trio, and harmonica player Jack Lynch, who offered a private tune for Lib Dodd, Jeanette Byrd and Alice Dodd Baker before playing for the crowd.
 Exhibits included vintage automobiles and several antique tractors, including one John Deere Model 50 from 1953, shown by M.C. Carr. A table of small farm tools and old household utensils attracted Taylor Jemison and Austin Miller, student council volunteers from Mary G. Montgomery High School.
On the campus of the 1902 one-room schoolhouse, children jumped rope, see-sawed and swirled on a tire swing. School marms Mildred Harris, Betty Houston and Terri Dodd beckoned guests from the schoolhouse doorway, while a few adults played a game of horseshoes.
Some marveled at the ingenuity of a mother killdeer who feigned a broken wing to lure inquisitive onlookers away from her nest on the school grounds.
There was no charge to enjoy the activities at Semmes Heritage Park, which includes Malone Chapel as well as the school, but donations were accepted to maintain the wood frame building and to offer schoolchildren an opportunity to spend a day in the classroom as their grandparents did.

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Semmes Heritage Day Festival is May 15, 2010

• AL.com and Press-Register Correspondent JoAnne McKnight​

The Semmes Heritage Day Festival will be May 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Heritage Park, 3871 Wulff Road. The event will include an open house at the 1902 Semmes Schoolhouse, the oldest continuously operating school in Alabama.
Many events, games and activities will be going on at the festival, most reminiscent of an earlier time.
For example, at 10 a.m., Frankie Wood, a Mobile storyteller and former principal at Semmes Elementary School, will be telling one of her favorite yarns, “Sweet Patootie,” the tale of a little Colonial-era girl who had no doll and made out of a sweet potato.
There will be music by the Deep South Dulcimers, led by Joyce Harris. Though the name implies that only dulcimers will be played, other old-time instruments and the voices of singers will lend depth to the group’s 11 a.m. performance.
Both of these events take place indoors — storytelling in the schoolhouse and the dulcimer concert in Malone Chapel, a replica of the first Baptist church of Semmes.
Another musical performance will be presented by the Semmes Elementary School choir. Also performing will be the Lost and Found Orchestra, led by David Baker, a member of the Mobile Pops. That group will entertain visitors from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
A square-dance demonstration by the Square Dealers, a troop of special-needs dancers, is on the schedule for a noon performance.
Festival chairwoman Jeanette Byrd said the grounds at Heritage Park will be filled with a display of wagons and classic tractors, with various vendors and arts and crafts exhibitors. There will be a country store and food and baked goods for sale.
Among the vendors will be the Sandovals with their popular Kettle Corn; a company with SnoBalls for sale; and Thirty One, a booth run by Gloria Greene, Janice Ross and Sue Ann Dixon. They specialize in purses, lunchboxes, cosmetics and Watkins Products.
Semmes Woman’s Club members will be selling their cookbook, “A Taste of Semmes.” The book includes photos and drawings of Semmes historic buildings and other scenes.
SWC will also have for sale a Mary Rodning print of the Howell Home, an 1897 farm house that will become the third Heritage Park structure, joining the school and Malone Chapel. The print sells for $10, as does the cookbook.
Among the demonstrations and exhibits: a grist mill grinding corn, a wash or rub board being used and a quilt in the process of being completed. There will be games for children, the kind their grandparents played, and there are see-saws and swings on the school grounds.
There is no admission charge. Byrd is still looking for volunteers who would like to display old-timey crafts. Vendors and artists and crafters can still get a space for $20 by calling Terri Nelson at 251-649-3163.